A Witch in Time — Context and Discussion

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In Category - Space Future

Authors: Williams, Herb, Freas, Kelly, 1922-2005 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2019 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Short stories; Love stories; Time travel -- Fiction; Executions and executioners -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 7,980

Reading time 35 min

Text sections 1

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #58980

Herb Williams's 1955 time-travel romance follows Nat Lyon, a 25th-century man who rescues accused witch Abigaile Goodyeare from a 17th-century gallows. The story juxtaposes archaic speech with futuristic technology, and contrasts Nat's clinical view of history with Abby's resourcefulness, as seen in her use of an ancient Greek ruse and a Renaissance dagger.

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Herb Williams's 1955 novelette opens not with a spaceship but with a 17th-century gallows scene, quoted from a fabricated historical volume. The first paragraph of fiction proper introduces Nat Lyon, a time-traveling 25th-century man, who has just used a paralysis ray to rescue Abigaile Goodyeare from execution for witchcraft. The story immediately establishes a tension between the romanticized abstraction of history and its gritty reality: Nat wrinkles his nose at the odor of a woman who has languished in an unsanitary jail. Abby's archaic speech—"Art thou the Lord? Or one of His Angels?"—clashes with Nat's casual 25th-century vernacular, creating a linguistic friction that runs through the tale.

Archaic Speech Meets Future Slang

The dialogue in A Witch in Time is a deliberate collision of eras. Abby speaks in a formal, biblical cadence: "Verily, I testify unto thee that I am no witch." Nat responds with 20th-century colloquialisms like "Sure, sure" and "Pretty Eyes." This contrast is not merely decorative; it underscores the cultural gap between the two characters. When Nat explains the paralysis ray and time machine, Abby's repetition—"Paralysis ray? Stop the show? Time machine?"—highlights her incomprehension. Later, the 25th-century agent uses the phrase "Some dish you have there," a slang that surprises Nat, who notes that "such animal reaction had been largely overcome by the 24th century." The story thus uses language to mark not only historical distance but also moral regression.

The Gaze and the Gimmick: Power Dynamics in the Excerpts

The excerpts repeatedly foreground the act of looking, often with predatory undertones. Nat first notices Abby's "deep blue eyes" and "long lashes." The 25th-century agent's eyes "moved slowly from her head to her feet, taking in every detail of her full figure." This leering gaze is framed as an atavistic lapse: the agent is "morally drunk" due to a neutralizing field that strips away inhibitions. Abby, however, is not merely an object. She actively manipulates the gaze, managing "a faint, inviting smile" while being revolted. Her later use of a dagger from Renaissance Italy—a souvenir from a previous time trip—turns the tables. The story thus builds a pattern of visual possession and resistance, with Abby's resourcefulness subverting the male gaze.

Time Travel as a Series of Souvenirs

Although the excerpts do not reveal the full itinerary, they hint that Nat and Abby have visited multiple historical periods. The dagger used to kill the agent was "picked up in Renaissance Italy." They also share knowledge of ancient Greek, learned during a "honeymoon"—presumably another temporal excursion. This suggests that time travel in the story is not a single rescue mission but an ongoing, intimate partnership. The couple's relationship is built through shared adventures across centuries, each leaving a tangible trace. The dagger becomes a symbol of their accumulated history, a tool that bridges past and future. This detail implies that the story's romance is as much about the accumulation of shared experience as it is about the initial rescue.

The excerpts offer a compact but layered narrative, where linguistic anachronisms, visual power struggles, and material artifacts from different eras converge. Readers should pay attention to how Williams uses small details—a dagger, a phrase, a glance—to build character and tension without relying on lengthy exposition. The incomplete text leaves open questions about the couple's earlier adventures and the ultimate resolution of their flight from the 25th-century authorities. The story rewards attention to its compressed, efficient storytelling.

Years shelving romances, I’ve often set Herb Williams’s A Witch in Time beside another old favorite. Both hold that ache of crossing centuries for love. Where Abby wields her dagger against fate, the heroines in Venus Enslaved — Inside the Classic find their own quiet strength in chains. They whisper to each other, these books, about resourcefulness blooming in captivity.